


Mirrors

by poetroe



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Drabble, F/F, Introspection, Post-Season/Series 03, idk where this came from i just needed to get it off my mind, implicit janaya, janai centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21672535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poetroe/pseuds/poetroe
Summary: “Dirty streaks tell her it hasn’t been cleaned in a while, but her features in the mirror are unmistakable.”Janai, seeing herself reflected in different ways.
Relationships: Amaya/Janai (The Dragon Prince)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 111





	Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> this fic started when I saw the last sentence of it in a tweet, and since i wrote an introspective amaya/janaya fic last week i guess it kinda makes sense my brain would want to do one for janai too? regardless, i love her character and her struggles and this is the result of that. my shortest fic to date but i think the size fits the story, enjoy reading uwu

Dirty streaks tell her it hasn’t been cleaned in a while, but her features in the mirror are unmistakable.

Her father’s jaw, her grandma’s cheeks, her mother’s nose. The muscles in Janai’s face tighten as she clenches her jaw. All gone, but living on in her face. Her sister’s eyes stare back at her.

The Queen’s eyes, brown and serious, familiar to her since birth—welling up with tears.

A breeze enters the room as Janai leaves it.

Lux Aurea has turned dim and unremarkable in the night; the pillars don’t shimmer in the darkness, the stone walls of the buildings aren’t warmed by the stars, the sundials lay useless in the moonlight. Janai feels weak as she walks through the empty streets.

She’s never walked through the city plunged in shadows like this. The light, the magic, everything that usually makes Janai feel strong and home, is missing. Janai turns a corner and crosses her fingers, hoping she doesn’t get lost in this city she barely recognizes.

The water of the river running through the heart of Lux Aurea laps against the pale sandstone that directs it course. Janai stops walking and stares at its muddled depths. The moonlight betrays her reflection in the black water, the trembles and small waves distorting her appearance.

There is nothing but the sound of those waves and the soft clinking of the chainmail that hits her chest, her shoulders, her thighs, the weight of which feels like it’s dragging her down, but Janai knows it is nothing in the face of the weight that duty requires her to take on.

To lead a people instead of a squire, to sit on a throne instead of a gryphon… Change is the only constant left in her life, or so it seems. The breeze picks up again and brings the soft noise of footsteps approaching along the river.

A small smile finds its way on her face in spite of it all when Amaya approaches, quietly in a way that’s impressive, especially for a woman who can’t hear her own steps. Janai raises her hand in the movement that translates to the common greeting. The general’s eyes are warm and questioning in reply, even more so when both her smile and her hand fall.

Janai just turns back to the river. They looks mismatched together; a human and an elf, standing not opposite, but next to each other. Or at least, they look like nothing Janai has ever seen.

The paleness of Amaya’s skin offsets the darkness of her own. A breath leaves Janai’s lungs as she realizes this is her, doing that which none of her family members could ever do: stand peacefully next to a human, so close that rebelliously minded fingers might even close that remaining distance entirely, and weave through the hand that hangs in the air not too far from her.

Janai blinks. Her sister’s eyes become her own. Her past becomes her future.

Her eyes meet Amaya’s again through the mirroring water, that one piece in which their bodies are similar, instead of different. The wind dies down and a total silence engulfs them. Janai briefly thinks of the dirty mirror in her sister’s room. Not what she saw in it, but the inscription carved into the ebony frame.

I hope you like what looks back at you.


End file.
